Henry said, “Not the whole of it, I hope.”

“No way. I set twenty grand aside in a separate account, so I’d have access to it. Not that I’d touch it,” she added in haste.

“I’m giving you an A-plus,” he said.

“I invested in mutual funds. How come I didn’t get an A-plus?” I interjected. Neither paid the slightest attention.

When Henry realized Anna was on her way in to Rosie’s, he pushed the door open again and held it, allowing her to pass in front of him. As he did so, I looked up and saw a truncated slice of the interior, a vertical slat that included a narrow view across the tables to the bar where Cheney sat. In that split second, I saw him turn and catch sight of Anna. His face creased in a smile as he got up. The door closed, but the image seemed to hang in the air.

Cheney’s throwaway line hadn’t really registered until then. Dinner with a friend? Since when was Anna Dace a friend?

5

The next morning, the office phone was already ringing as I turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. The phone continued to ring as I crossed the outer office in giant steps and flung my bag on my desk. I was poised to snatch up the handset when my outgoing message kicked in. “The party you’ve dialed in the 805 area code is currently unavailable . . .”

My first thought was that this might be Christian Satterfield’s parole officer, or perhaps the parolee himself. I was just about to answer when I heard Cheney’s voice. I stayed my hand, which hovered in midair as he tossed off a hasty greeting and then read aloud the phone number and the address on Dave Levine Street that Christian Satterfield had used at the time of his arrest. I picked up a pen and made a note of the information as Cheney neared the end of his recital. After he signed off, I played the message again, making certain I’d heard the numbers correctly.

I opened my bottom desk drawer and hauled out the phone book again. I flipped over to the S’s and ran a finger down the column. There were no Satterfields living on Dave Levine, but I found a match for the phone number under the name Victor Satterfield on Trace Avenue, which was not a street I knew. I removed the Santa Teresa street map from my shoulder bag and opened it to the full. I spread it across my desk and checked the street index. I found Trace at the axis of G on the horizontal and 31 on the vertical. The street was a block and a half long and butted right up against Highway 101. If I was correct in my recollection of the house numbers on Dave Levine, this address was no more than five blocks away from the one Satterfield had claimed ten years earlier.